In early March the UN Women office in Georgia launched a series of campaigns on Facebook to advocate for women’s rights amid the COVID-19 crisis. Thanks to the popularity of the social media platform and the timely information, the campaigns reached over a million people.

Digital technologies can contribute to achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, delivering better, more equal outcomes for men and women, providing women with “leapfrogging opportunities” and helping close gender gaps. However, this first requires overcoming existing barriers.

It is impossible to achieve gender equality and to respect women’s rights without raising public awareness. To that end, an electronic course developed through the joint initiative of the Public Defender of Georgia and UN Women represents an important step taken towards this direction.

Marina Tabukashvili is Head of Georgia’s Taso Foundation, the National Women`s Fund and the Memory Research Center. She tells us why the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, a visionary agenda to empower women and girls, was adopted in 1995, and discusses what prevents women from realizing their rights today.

As women’s rights have advanced over the past decades, families around the world have become a place of love and solidarity but also one where fundamental human rights violations and gender inequalities persist, according to UN Women’s report, “Progress of the World’s Women 2019-2020”.

The gender gap persists in the field of technology. This leads women to miss out on competitive salaries and to encounter technological inventions that ignore women’s needs or even perpetuate the current gender stereotypes in society.

Reaching out to young people is an essential part of promoting women and men’s equal opportunities and fighting gender-based discrimination in the long term. Supporting their innovative ideas may transform the workplace into a better environment for all.

According to the Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) 2019 Regional Report for Eurasia, discrimination against Eurasian women is most pervasive within the family. Despite legal reforms promoting greater gender equality, deep-rooted social norms and practices inspire such discrimination.

The Inter-Agency Commission on Gender Equality, Violence against Women and Domestic Violence held a presentation of the draft report “National-level Review of the Implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action Beijing+25 (BPfA)” with support from the UN Women.

Within the framework of the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence campaign, UN Women presented the collection of fairy tales “Once There was a Girl” to children living in the Georgian regions.

In the foreword to the UN Women flagship publication UN Secretary-General António Guterres underlined that “dramatic advances in statistics, finances and policies for gender equality” are inevitable for the implementation of the Agenda’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

UN Women, in partnership with the Maritime Transport Agency (MTA) of the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development of Georgia and the Women’s Shipping and Trading Association (WISTA), has entered into partnership to promote women in the maritime industry.

Diana Anthimiadou is a popular Georgian writer. She contributed two tales to the collection of fairy tales titled Once There was a Girl. The book, published in June 2018, was developed by UN Women Georgia.

For many children, fairy tales are an important introduction to the outside world. They teach children how to distinguish kindness from malice, recognize justice from injustice, generate empathy and encourage bravery.